pond problem prevention

After last year's experience with raking and hand pulling sunken leaves out of the pond for weeks, I decided that those who net over their ponds to prevent the leaves from actually entering the water were on to something.

Although most of the trees haven't started dropping them yet, there have been a few leaves falling into the water, so I decided on Saturday that I needed to act on the netting before it was too late.

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After first checking out the local pond store and finding their prices to unreasonably high, I hit the local home improvement store for some supplies: pvc electrical conduit, UV-resistant zip ties, and netting.

Although the netting only came in 7' (2.1m) widths, it was 100' (30m) long so I could attach two pieces together to get the width I needed: 14'x20' would work for me.

The plants were in the way, so I had to trim back the Colocasia a bit. Here they are before trimming:

The same went for the canna: too tall, so had to get trimmed. (Before trimming:)

It was really difficult working with the thin netting (I used "deer block" netting which was just a bit heavier than the "bird netting" I have previously used for projects) as it kept getting caught on everything and was almost invisible when laying on the ground.

I finally got it pulled into place and secured with garden staples and rocks. Then I threw a few leaves on top of it so you could actually see something in the photos.

I suspect it will be easily visible in the next week or so when the maple leaves fall.

One complication is that I'll still need to get under this net to pull more of the plants out. I guess I should have done that before installing the netting...


I'm feeling pretty good about getting this in place in time, as it should really reduce the work needed to keep the water and fish healthy this winter.

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